ART AND SUBVERSION: THREE TRADITIONS OF AESTHETIC THEORY PHIL 336: Aesthetics Winter 2011 Instructors: Anna Ezekiel and Shiloh Whitney Time and place: Three 50-minute lectures per week. Leacock 15 MWF 09:35 10:25 Contact information: Anna Ezekiel e-mail: anna.ezekiel@mcgill.ca Office hours: Posted on WebCT Shiloh Whitney e-mail: shiloh.whitney@mcgill.ca Office hours: Posted on WebCT COURSE DESCRIPTION An introduction to the history of aesthetic theory, investigating central questions of aesthetics such as the nature of aesthetic judgment, the perception of aesthetic objects, and the nature of art objects. The course surveys the approaches to these themes found in three traditions of aesthetics: German, French, and English. Questions to be considered in this class include: Is there a unique aesthetic experience on the basis of which we may identify and define art? What is genius, and does it play a role in the production of art? Does the creation or contemplation of art offer special knowledge? Is the creation or contemplation of art important to the development of morals or freedom? Is it possible to understand artworks in isolation from their social and political context? How is art implicated in regimes of social control, and how can art be invoked to subvert these regimes? Can the enjoyment or creation of art be politically disinterested? How are practices of art theory and appreciation implicated in the exclusion of women? Could artistic expression be a source of power for women? The first part of the course will survey major developments in German aesthetics during the height of German work on aesthetic theory in the late 18 th and 19 th centuries. Themes to be investigated include the nature of aesthetic judgment, the definition of the beautiful and the sublime, the role of art in the attainment of freedom and knowledge, the artist as genius, and the role of art in understanding and interpreting the world. We will also examine feminist critiques of traditional aesthetic theory, which argue that some of these themes have worked to exclude women from the creation and appreciation of art.
The second part of the course investigates 20 th century French aesthetics, highlighting the themes of embodiment and expression in this tradition s understanding of artistic creation and appreciation. The section begins with Merleau-Ponty s account of the painter s perception, which provides a model of art as an event in which the body and the world come to be in relation to each other, and moves on through an examination of Foucault s treatment of art as a mobilization of regimes of power, to theories that present art as enabling both social control and subversion. Questions treated in this section include: how does the embodied experience of art support forms of social control? Does the experience of art and of the creative process offer special critical or subversive powers? Is the experience of art inflected with sexual difference? How is this inflection mobilized, both in the use of art as social control, and its subversive uses? What role do affects such as horror and desire play in the creation and appreciation of art? And how can we understand the phenomenon of expression in a manner that accounts for the dynamics of power and subversion in the embodied experience of artistic creation and appreciation? The third part of the course begins by considering Hume s essay on the standard of taste, and then moves to Bullough s pivotal 1912 essay on psychical distance, examining the shift from theories of aesthetic properties to those of the aesthetic attitude. If there is a special attitude operating in the perception of the art object, can we define art in terms of this unique disposition? If there is a disposition proper to the creation or appreciation of art, is it a personal or an impersonal attitude? The last part of this section considers theories of art as practice, as family resemblance, and as institution, and examines the need for an account of expression as part of a theory of art. LEARNING OUTCOMES Outcomes regarding content By the end of this course, students will: 1. Be familiar with central questions that have preoccupied the three traditions of aesthetic theory covered in this course (German, French, and English). 2. Be able to identify some differences of approach to these questions between these three traditions. 3. Understand differences in the responses to these questions within these three traditions. 4. Be able to identify some important criticisms attending some of these theories of aesthetics. 5. Appreciate the importance for aesthetic theory of the socio-political context of artworks and art practices. 6. Recognize some of the ways in which traditional aesthetic theory has excluded women and contributed to the oppression of women. Outcomes regarding skills By the end of this course, students will: 1. Have improved their ability to read and analyze philosophical texts. 2. Have made improvements in their ability to write clear, well-structured, persuasive accounts of philosophical ideas.
3. Have developed the ability to ask clear, concise, relevant, and insightful questions about texts and theories. COURSE CON TENT 5 th January Introduction, overview Section 1: German a esthetics 7 th January Kant: Aesthetic judgment Required reading: The Critique of Judgment ( 1790), Analytic of the Beautiful, ss. 1 11, 15, 18 22 Suggested reading: The Critique of Judgment (1790), Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgments, ss. 32 37 10 th January Kant: The sublime Required reading: The Critique of Judgment (1790), Analytic of the Sublime, ss. 25 29 Suggested reading: Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime (1864), Of the D istinction of the Beautiful and Sublime in the Interrelations of the Two Sexes, section 3 12 th January Kant: Genius Required reading: The Critique of Judgment (1790), Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgments, ss. 46 50 14 th January Hegel: The work of art Required reading: Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics (1820s), Chapter III, Part I The Work of Art as Mad e and as Sensuous (pp. 27 46) 17 th January Hegel: The end of art Required reading: Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics (1820s), Chapter III, Part II The End of Art (pp. 46 61) 19 th January Hegel: The arts Required reading: Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics (1820s), Chapter V Division of the Subject (pp. 76 97) 21 st January Novalis: Art as salvation Required reading: Excerpts from Philosophical Writings (on WebCT), Monologue, and excerpts from The Novices of Saïs 24 th January Critical interlude I: Women, art, and morals Required reading: Battersby, Stages on Kant s Way: Aesthetics, Morality, and the Gendered Sublime (1995) 26 th January Schopenhauer: The World as Will and Representation
Required reading: Excerpts from The World as Will and Representation (1818 [1844]), Volume I, Books 1 and 2 Recommended reading: Janaway, Schopenhauer: A Very Short Introduction (2002), chapters 2 4 (pp. 14 54) 28 th January Schopenhaue r: Art as knowledge and release from suffering Required reading: Excerpts from The World as Will and Representation (1818 [1844]), Volume I, Book 3 Recommended reading: Janaway, Schopenhauer: A Very Short Introduction (2002), chapter 6 ( p p. 70 87) 31 st January Critical interlude II: Aesthetic enjoyment as disinterested Required reading: Carolyn Korsmeyer, Pleasure: Reflections on Aesthetics and Feminism (1993) and Peggy Ze glin Brand, Disinterestedness and Political Art (1998) 2 nd February Nietzsche: Art as consolation Required reading: The Birth of Tragedy ( 1872), ss. 1 7, 25 only Suggested reading: The Birth of Tragedy (1872), ss. 8 15 4 th February Critical interlude III: The artist as genius Required reading: Christine Battersby, From Gender and Genius (1989) and Linda Nochlin, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? (1971) Section 2: French ae sthetics Embodiment 7 th February Merleau Ponty: Painting as perception ( Eye and Mind /1961) 9 th February Continue Merleau Ponty FIRST PAPER DUE (electronically, by midnight) 11 th February Continue Merleau Ponty 14 th February Foucault: Art as subjection ( The Body of the Condemned and Docile Bodies /1975) 16th February Continue Foucault ( Las Meninas /1966) 18 February Continue Foucault Expression 28 th February Bataille: Art as excess ( The Phaedra Complex, Desire Horrified at Losing and at Losing Oneself, / 1949) 2 nd March Continue Bataille ( The Lugubrious Game / 1927 39) 4 th March Kristeva: Abjection and art as jouissance ( Approaching Abjection and Filth and Defilement / 1980) 7 th March Continue Kristeva ( Giotto s Joy /1987) 9th March Continue Kristeva 11 March Cixous: Art as liberation ( The Laugh of the Medusa /1975) Section 3: English aesthetics
14 th March Hume: Art as a matter of taste ( Of the Standard of Taste / 1757) 16th March Bullough: Art as a matter of psychical distance, and the turn to aesthetic attitude theories ( Psychical Distance as a Factor in Art and an Aesthetic Principle /1912). 18 th March Woolf: Art as androgynous ( A Room of One s Own /1929) 21 st March Continue Bullough and Woolf SECOND PAPER DUE (in class) 23 rd March Dickie: Critique of aesthetic attitude ( All Aesthetic Attitude Theories Fail / 1964) Stolnitz (recommended): More aesthetic attitude ( Some Questions Concerning Aesthetic Perception / 1961) 25 th March Weitz: Art as practice ( The Role of Theory in Aesthetics / 1956) 28 th March Dickie: Art as institution Required reading: Defining Art (1969) 30 th March Cohen: Critique of institutional theory of art Re quired reading: The Possibility of Art (1973) 1 st April Dewey: Art and experience Required reading: Art as Experience (1934), Chapter 1 The Live Creature, and excerpts from Chapter 2 The Live Creature and Ethereal Things 4 th April Dewey: Art as an experience Re quired reading: Art as Experience (1934), Chapter 3 Having an Experience 6 th April Dewey: Art as expression Re quired reading: Art as Experience (1934), Chapter 4 The Act of Expression 8 th April Langer: Art as significant form Required reading: Feeling and Form ( 1953), Chapter 3 The Symbol of Feeling. Suggested reading: Feeling and Form (1953), Chapter 20 Expressiveness, and Chapter 21 The Work and Its Public COURSE MATERIALS Required readings Bataille, Georges. The Phaedra Complex and Desire Horrified at Losing and at Losing Oneself. Trans. Robert Hurley. The Bataille Reader, Eds. Fred Botting and Scott Wilson, pp 253-7, 258-63. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997. First edition in French, 1949. ---. The Lugubrious Game, Trans Allan Stoekl, Carl R. Lovitt and Donald M. Leslie, Jr.. Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939, pp 24-30. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985. First edition in French, 1970.
Battersby, Christine. From Gender and Genius [1989]. In Aesthetics: The Big Questions, ed. Carolyn Korsmeyer, pp. 305 314. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998). ---. Stages on Kant s Way: Aesthetics, Morality, and the Gendered Sublime (1995). In Feminism and Tradition in Aesthetics, ed. Peggy Zeglin Brand and Carolyn Korsmeyer, pp. 88 114. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995. Brand, Peggy Zeglin. Disinterestedness and Political Art. In Carolyn Korsmeyer, ed. Aesthetics: The Big Questions, pp. 155 70. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998). Bullough, Edward (1912). Psychical Distance as a Factor in Art and an Aesthetic Principle. British Journal of Psychology, vol. 5 no. 2 (1912): pp 87-98. Cixous, Helene. The Laugh of the Medusa. Trans. Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen. Signs vol. 1 no. 4: (Summer 1976): 875-893. First published in French, 1975. Cohen, Ted. The Possibility of Art: Remarks on a Proposal by Dickie. The Philosophical Review 82:1 (January 1973): 69 82. Devereaux, Mary. Excerpts from Oppressive Texts, Resisting Readers, and the Gendered Spectator: The New Aesthetics (1990). Dewey, John. Excerpts from Art as Experience. New York: Penguin (Perigree), 2005 [1934]. Dickie, George. All Aesthetic Attitude Theories Fail: The Myth of the Aesthetic Attitude. American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 1 no. 1 (1964): pp 56-66. ---. Defining Art. American Philosophical Quarterly 6:3 (July 1969): 253 56. Foucault, Michel. The Body of the Condemned and Docile Bodies. Trans. Alan Sheridan. The Foucault Reader, Ed. Paul Rabinow, pp 170-178, 179-187. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. First edition in French, 1975. ---. Las Meninas. The Order of Things, pp ii, 3-16. New York: Pantheon Books, 1994. First edition in French 1970. Hegel, G. W. F. Excerpts from Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics ([1820s] 1835) (on 3 hour reserve at the library). Hume, David. Of the Standard of Taste. Of the Standard of Taste and Other Essays. Ed. John W. Lenz, pp 3-24. New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc, 1965. First published 1757. Kant, Immanuel. Excerpts from Critique of Judgment. Ed. Paul Guyer, trans. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000 [1790]) Korsmeyer, Carolyn. Pleasure: Reflections on Aesthetics and Feminism. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 51:2 (Spring 1993): 199 206. Kristeva, Julia. Approaching Abjection (abridged) and From Filth to Defilement (abridged) Trans. Leon S. Roudiez. The Portable Kristeva, Ed. Kelly Oliver, pp 229-47, 248-63. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. First edition in French, 1980. ---. Giotto s Joy. Trans. Thomas Gora, Alice Jardine, and Leon S. Roudiez, Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art, pp 210-36. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. First edition in French, 1980. Langer, Susanne K. The Symbol of Feeling. In Feeling and Form, pp. 24 41. New York: Charles Scribner s Sons, 1953. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Eye and Mind. Trans. Carleton Dallery. The Primacy of Perception, pp 159-190. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964. First edition in French, 1961. Nietzche, Friedrich. Excerpts from The Birth of Tragedy. In The Birth of Tragedy and The Genealogy of Morals, trans. Francis Golffing, pp. 1 146. New York: Random House, 1956.
Nochlin, Linda. Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? In Women, Art, and Power, pp. 145 78. New York: Harper and Row, 1988. Novalis. Monologue. In Philosophical Writings, ed. and trans. Margaret Mahony Stoljar, pp. 83 84. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1997. Novalis. Excerpts from Philosophical Writings, ed. and trans. Margaret Mahony Stoljar. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1997 (on WebCT). Novalis. Excerpts from The Novices of Saïs, trans. Ralph Manheim. St. Paul, MN: Archipelago Books, 2005. Schopenhauer, Arthur. Excerpts from The World as Will and Representation, trans. E. F. J. Payne. Vol. I. New York: Dover Publications, 1969 [1818]. Weitz, Morris. The Role of Theory in Aesthetics. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 15 no. 1 (1956): pp 27-35. Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One s Own. New York: Harcourt, Inc, 2005. First published in 1929 (on 3 hour reserve in the library). Required readings will be included in a course pack, posted on WebCT, or made available at the library. Suggested readings Bataille, Georges. The Object of Desire and the Totality of the Real. Trans. Robert Hurley. The Bataille Reader, Eds. Fred Botting and Scott Wilson, pp 264-70. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997. First edition in French, 1949. ---. The Practice of Joy before Death. Trans Allan Stoekl, Carl R. Lovitt and Donald M. Leslie, Jr.. Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939, pp 235-9. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985. First edition in French, 1970. Hammermeister, Kai. The German Aesthetic Tradition. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Janaway, Christopher. Schopenhauer: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Kant, Immanuel. Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime, section 3: Of the Distinction of the Beautiful and Sublime in the Interrelations of the Two Sexes (1864). Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy (1873), ss. 8 24. Stolnitz, Jerome. Some Questions Concerning Aesthetic Perception (1961). ASSIGNMENTS AND EVALUATION This course will be evaluated by two 900 word papers, each worth 30% of the total grade for the course, a final exam, worth 30% of the total grade for the course, and 10% for participation. The participation grade will include attendance (4%), and discussion questions and responses posted on WebCT (6%). (30%) Assignment 1: The first paper will be due at midnight on Wednesday, February 9, and must be submitted by e-mail. (30%) Assignment 2: The second paper will be due in class on Monday, March 21. Late papers will be penalized at a rate of a third of a letter grade (5%) per day or part thereof. A copy of a medical certificate or death certificate will be required in order to obtain an extension.
(30%) Final Exam: Take home exam, due date TBA (6%) Discussion questions/responses: Each student must submit 6 questions AND 6 responses to other students questions over the course of the term. Each question/response is worth 0.5% of the course grade. Only one question and/or one response per week per student will count towards the grade (i.e., you must post on at least 6 separate weeks, and are therefore advised to begin submitting questions and responses in the early weeks of the term). (4%) Attendance: A sign-up sheet will be at the front of the class during the first 10 minutes of each lecture. In accord with McGill University s Charter of Students Rights, students in this course have the right to submit in English or in French any written work that is to be graded. McGill University values academic integrity. Therefore, all students must understand the meaning and consequences of cheating, plagiarism and other academic offences under the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures (www.mcgill.ca/students/srr/honest/). In the event of extraordinary circumstances beyond the University s control, the content and/or evaluation scheme in this course is subject to change.